Entering 2012 as one of the most underrated and under the radar online poker players, high-stakes player Ben “Sauce123” Sulsky will probably never be able to sneak onto a virtual table without getting noticed again. The young American dominated PokerStars online poker play in 2012, exploding for over $3.5 million in profit to lead all the high stakes charts at that online poker room. Many of the big names usually seen at the top of the profits leader board at the end of the year had difficult seasons, one notable professional being Gus Hansen.

Hansen was the first professional to sign a deal with the new Full Tilt Poker website, and went from up $4 million prior to the shutdown on Black Friday of 2011, to an amazing streak of bad luck which saw him dump a full $3 million in less than two months. The player known as the Great Dane definitely will be looking forward to 2013 to turn his luck around, but Finnish pro Jens “Jeans89” Kyllonen will certainly be looking forward to duplicating his 2012 success, where he was second in online profits with $2.4 million.

It is a good thing that Kyllonen had such a remarkable year last year, since he allegedly bought in for 100% of the $1 million buy-in required for the Big One for One Drop tournament, as well as supposedly paying cash money for a trip into space. A previously little-known player professing to be of Dutch origin but playing in Ireland, the player going by the screen name EireAbu had an awesome 2012, cashing in for more than $2.1 million in profit.

Like many American players who left the country after Black Friday in 2011, displaced US professional Phil Galfond moved his virtual play headquarters to Vancouver, Canada, where he finished the year with a $1.4 million profit over 177,674 hands. That is a true poker grind of about +$8 per hand, and certainly will help him recoup the $600,000 he lost online in 2011. One notable big time online poker player who lost a significant amount of money in 2012 has yet to be identified. Playing under the name of Zypherin on PokerStars, the virtual poker grinder that some have identified as Guy Laliberte dropped an incredible $3.58 million over only 60,697 hands.

Notable online and off-line poker professionals Patrik “Fake Love888” Antonius and Tom “durrrr” Dwan each lost nearly $1 million online last year, and one player that experienced both incredible highs and lows in the high-stakes online poker arena last year was Viktor Blom. The seasoned online and off-line poker professional suffered nearly $2.6 million in losses from his online efforts in 2012 when playing at PokerStars. However, he softened the blow considerably by cashing in a profit of $413,544 on the new Full Tilt Poker website. We here at The Poker Grind wish you nothing but profits in the new year, and we’ll see you at the tables.